


awkward conversations (followed by awkward hugs)

by heliantheae



Category: Captain America (Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Multi, POV Angie Martinelli
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-30
Updated: 2018-12-30
Packaged: 2019-09-30 16:26:45
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,209
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17227409
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/heliantheae/pseuds/heliantheae
Summary: Bucky was rescued after he fell. Steve never went into the ice. They're both declared dead anyway, and rectifying that is a little awkward.Or: Angie just wanted to drink wine and relax.





	awkward conversations (followed by awkward hugs)

**Author's Note:**

> Title from "Awkward Conversations" by the Front Bottoms.

Angie wakes up to a knock at the door, and Peggy’s voice saying tartly, “Oh, good. You’re alive. That means I can kill you myself.”

“Hey, Peg,” a man says sheepishly, but that’s as far as he gets before Peggy presumably attacks him, if the crashing and swearing are anything to go by. 

Angie sits up in time to watch Peggy put a large blond man into a headlock and drag him through the door. “You asshole,” she snarls. “You reckless son of a bitch. I thought you were dead.”

Another man trails in after them, looking faintly amused. Angie squints at him. He looks familiar, and then it hits her, though he’s looking a little worse for wear given the metal arm and dark circles under his eyes. “Bucky Barnes,” she says. “Yeah?”

He frowns. “That’s me. You one of the Martinelli girls?”

She forgives him for not knowing which one, because including all of her sisters and cousins there’s nearly two dozen of them. “Angie,” she introduces herself. “I’m Big Gio’s oldest girl.”

“Right, right,” says Barnes. “I used to do some work with your brother, Tommy. How’s he doing?”

“Made it through the war,” Angie tells him. “Minus a couple of fingers, but I suppose if Bucky Barnes is doing it then it must be in style,” she nods at his arm.

He snorts. “It’s all the rage over in Europe. I’m told the ladies will like it.”

“For Tommy’s sake I hope not,” Angie informs him tartly. “He married Andrea Rossi when he got home.”

“She always was a spitfire,” Barnes agrees. “How’s she doing?”

“She’s six months along with a little girl,” Angie says, adding, “She and Tommy are so happy together it’s hard to watch.”

“Tommy was a bit of a sap back when we were kids,” Barnes allows. “Not surprising he took to married life.”

“What about you?” Angie asks. “Ready to settle down so your ma stops complaining about her poor nerves at every church dinner?”

Barnes looks to where Peggy is brandishing a lamp at the blond man. “Not sure I could handle those two and a wife,” he confesses. “On account of my own poor nerves and all.”

Angie follows his gaze, and pauses. “That’s not little Stevie Rogers,” she says. “Tell me it’s not.”

“Well,” says Barnes. “He’s not really _little_ Stevie Rogers no more.”

“Jesus Christ,” Angie mutters. “I need coffee.”

“Won’t help,” Barnes informs her placidly. “It still won’t make sense.”

Angie sighs. “He always did have a knack for finding trouble,” because even if she hadn’t known Rogers personally she’d still heard stories.

“I leave for about eight seconds and suddenly he’s getting thrown in a dumpster, or arrested at a socialist rally, or turning into Captain fucking America,” Barnes agrees.

Peggy evidently overhears this and is inspired, because she says, “You’re not just Captain fucking America, Steve! You’re a real person and I’m so tired of losing people.”

“Aw, Peg,” says Steve guiltily.

“I know you said coffee wouldn’t help,” Angie says, as Peggy dissolves into furious tears, “But maybe we oughta try it anyway. We could make it Irish.”

“You going out like that?” Barnes inquires, and it’s then that Angie remembers she’s wearing her ugliest, patchiest pair of pajamas.

Angie places a mock-offended hand on her chest. “What, I don’t look nice?”

“Like you’re straight out of Paris, doll,” Barnes says, straight-faced.

\----------

Barnes has a slightly different idea about what coffee means, apparently, because Angie finds herself dragged along to inform his family that he is not, in fact, dead. She hadn’t even known he’d been declared killed in action. “I could wait outside for this,” Angie says as he knocks on the door. “Or further away than that, even. I’ve got family around here I could visit.”

A woman Angie recognizes as his mother answers the door though, and she’s unable to escape what’s bound to be an awkward situation. Winifred Barnes goes white as a sheet when she sees her son. “Jamie?” she asks softly.

“Hey, Ma,” Barnes replies, presumably because he’s an asshole, or maybe just because he doesn’t know what to say.

Angie is willing to give him the benefit of the doubt, just this once. “You sure you want me here?” she murmurs as they trail after his mother and into a tiny, cheerful kitchen. 

Barnes shrugs. “Won’t kill me in front of a guest now, will she? I didn’t make it through that goddamn war so my ma could kill me for the Army telling her I’m dead.”

That’s fair, Angie supposes. Her own ma likely wouldn’t have hesitated if something similar had happened to her, but maybe Mrs. Barnes was different, being Irish instead of Italian and all. “George! George, you will not believe this!” the older woman bellows with surprising vigor for someone who had just received the shock of her life. 

If George Barnes was anything like Angie’s own father, he had been dozing and listening to the radio, waiting for his second cup of coffee to kick in. “What is it, Winnie?” he calls back, at the volume one would expect from someone only in the next room. “Is it that damn stray cat you’ve been feeding?”

\----------

Angie had firmly believed that sitting through the tears and stunned silence of Barnes’s mother and father, respectively, while he explained why he had been accidentally declared dead and how he wasn’t—on account of little Stevie Rogers being Captain America—would be the most awkward experience she would ever have. In a way, she had been almost relieved. Nothing life threw at her now would phase her, she remembers thinking.

God had evidently been listening and decided to knock her down a peg. Angie clutches her chest “Jesus, Mary, and Joseph.”

She had just been trying to come home from a long shift at the diner and have a soak in the tub until she smelled less like fried food and coffee grounds. Maybe she would have had a glass of wine. Maybe three, and then she would have slept ten hours because that’s apparently what happens to people when they turn twenty-five. 

Another attempt at processing the scene in front of her fails. “Holy Mary, mother of God.”

“Are you done?” Peggy wants to know, pulling a sheet up to cover herself and raising an eyebrow at her.

Angie considers this. “Fuck,” she says, which makes her feel a little better, “I’m done. I’ll just...go.”

“There’s room for you too, doll,” Barnes offers from where he’s sprawled on the far side of Peggy’s bed. 

Not-so-little Stevie Rogers, right there next to him, hits him with a pillow. “I’m really sorry, Miss Martinelli,” he tells her earnestly. 

Angie closes her eyes. She opens her eyes. They’re all still there. “I’m going to have a bath and drink a bottle of wine and forget this happened,” she informs them. “Christ. I sound like my ma.”

Shaking her head and muttering to herself, Angie leaves them to it. They seem like they work well together, after all, and she’s wised up to Barnes’s tricks. She won’t let herself be dragged into it if this is ever a conversation he has to have with his mother.


End file.
